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RADICAL COMMON SENSE— THE PRES- 
IDENT AND CONCRESS. 



n3 



SPEECH OF HOF. JACOB H. ELA, 

OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
In the House of Representatives, December 13, 1867. 



The House being in Committtee of the 
Whole on the state of the Union, and having 
under consideration the President's Mes- 
sage. 

Mr. ELA said : 

Mr. Chairman: — It may be presumptuous 
in me at this time to address the House ; but 
the attempt of the President to put this 
Congress before the country, as he does in 
his message, as persistent violators of the 
Consticution, in their measures for the recon- 
struction of the rebel States, induces me to 
attempt an examination into the facts. The 
allegations of the President are that — 

'"Jo dict;ae what alteriaions shall bo mailo in the 
coo(-titutioii3 of tho several States; to control tho 
olectioiis of Stato lugislutors and Stato ofTjcerB, mem- 
bers of Congress, and electors of President and Vice 
President, by arbitrarily declaring who shall veto and 
who shall boixcludod from that privilege; to organ- 
ize and operatoull tho political machinery of tho Staroa, 
tlicse are powers noi granted to tho t'ederiil Govero- 
metit or to any of its brandies. If tho authority we 
desire to u^e does not como to us through tho Constitu- 
tion we can exercise it only by uiurpalion, and usur- 
pation is the mo't dangerous of political crimes. 

"The acts of Cong oss in question are not only objec- 
tionable for their assumption of ungrantod power, but 
many of their provisions are in conllict with the direct 
prohibitions of the Constitution." 

What I now propose is to examine the acts 
both of the President and Congress, and 
the authority upon which they are based, and 
see who, in the language of the President, 
has been guilty of this most dangerous of 
political crimes — the usurpation of ungranted 
powers._ The duty and authority of the Presi- 
dent I find in section three of the second ar- 
ticle of the Constitution, as follows : 

• "The President shall from time to time give to the 
Congress inlorraatioii upon tho State of tho Union, 
and recommend to their consideration such measures as 
he shall judge necessary and expedient;" * * * 

* "ho niay,onoxtraordiDary occasions.ronvenf both 
nous»s, or cit.icr of them : he "shall take care that the 
laws be laithfuUy executed." 

Here is not to be found one word about lec- 
turing Congress, or lecturing State Legisla- 
tures, or appointing provisional governors 
over States, or authorizing ©oaventiona to 



alter the constitutions of States, or determ- 
ining who might vote or who might not vote 
m the several States, or in any manner what- 
ever authorizing him to exercise legislative 
duties. Yet since the close of the armed re- 
bellion the President has done all these 
things. He has done all, and more than all 
he charges Congress with having done. 

USURPATION OF THE PRESIDENT. 

He issued a proclamation on the 29th day 
of May, 1865, from which I make the follow- 
ing extract : 

"I, Andrew Johnson, President of tho United Stateg 
.and Commander-in-Chief of th« Army and Navy of tho 
United States, do hereby appoint William W. Ilolden 
provisional governor of the State of North Carolina; 
whoso duty it shall bo at tho earliest practicable period 
to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be ne- 
cessary and proper for convening a convention com- 
posed of delegates to bo chosen by that portion of tha 
people of said States, who are loyal to tho United 
States, and no others, for (ho purpose of altering 
or amending tho Constitution thereof; and with au- 
thority to exercise within the- limits of said Stato 
all tho powers necessary and proper to enable such 
loyal people of tho Stato to restore said Stato to its con- 
stitutional relations to the Federal Government." 

And when he issued this proclamation, h© 
said he did it — 

" In obedience to the high and solemn duties Impoged 
on me by the Constitution of the United States." * 

Tell me, you men on this floor, if any thero 
be who support the President, where he found 
the right to exercise legislative powers at all. 
much more the right to go into a State and 
appoint over it a provisional governor, an offi- 
cer unknown to the Constitution. What right 
had he to order a convention to make a con- 
stitution for a State in this Union ? What 
right had he to say who should compose a 
convention to alter a constitution for a State?* 
Tell me what right he had to say, as he did, 
who should vote and who should not vote in 
the State of North Carolina any more than ho 
would have the right to go into the State of 
Pennsylvaniaand say who should vote there? 
What right had he to tell the convention of 
North Carolina, as he did in his "executive 
order" of October 18, 1865— 






" That every dollar of the debt created in aid of the 
rebellion against the United States should be repudiated 
finally and forever ?" 

Had he any more right to tell North Caro- 
lina what debts she must repudiate than to 
tell her what debts she must pay ? Had he 
not the same right to tell New York what 
debts sL . might repudiate and what ihe might 
pay ? What he did to North Carolina he did 
to South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Flor- 
ida, Mississippi, and Texas. 

In the case of Virginia, he issued on the 
8th day of May, 1865, an " executive order" 
reorganizing the "^Peirpolnt administration 
as that of the State of Virginia." Now, 
where did he get the right to recognize this 
Peirpoint administration which was an illegi- 
timate sort of a bantling got up and main- 
tained over the river in Alexandria. "Where 
in the Constitution is to be found the author- 
ity to recognize any twenty men who got up 
a government after the fashion of old John 
Brown, for the State of Virginia, by an 
"executive order?" And where in that 
Constitution he scattered so profusely did he 
find the authority to telegraph from the 
"executive office," as he did to Governor 
Murphy, of Arkansas, on the 20th of October, 
1865, that— 

"There will be no interference with your present 
organization of State government?" 

Not content with what he did himself, he 
calls to his aid the Secretary of State, who 
writes on the 1st of November, 1865, to Pro- 
visional Governor Marvin, of Florida, that 
the President — 

" Directs me to say that he regards the ratification 
by tho Legislature of the congressional amendment oi 
the Constitution of the United States as indispensable to 
a successful restoration." 

URGING COLORED SUFFRAGE. 

This is not all. He wrote down from his 
"executive office " to his executive satrap in 
Mississippi August 15, 1865 : 

" I am gratified to see that you have organized your 
convention without difficulty. If you could extend the 
elective franchise to all persons of color who can read 
the Constitution of the United States in English and 
write their names, and to all colored men who own real 
estate valued at not less than $250 and pay taxes there- 
on, you would completely disarm the adversary and set 
an example the other States will follow." 

Shade of Moses 1 Is this the man who is 
now filled with horror because Congress, in 
the legitimate exercise of its constitutional 
authority, adds to the classes above named 
the men who had fought beneath the Union 
flag and earned their right to the ballot, and 
those who were our allies during the war and 
'are now willing to fight andbe taxed to main- 
tain the Union. Ay, it is the same man who 
stands self-condemned in the message I am 
now considering as guilty of "usurpation, 
the most dangerous of political crimes." 
Again the message declares: 

"These acts of Congress totally subvert and destroy 
the form es well as the substance of republican govern- 
ment in the ten States to Trliicb they ^ply." 

West. Kes. 



The whole message proceeds upon the as- 
sumption that the rebel States are, and al- 
ways have been, in the Union, with all the 
rights, powers, and duties of States. If this 
doctrine be true, they have now, and always 
have had, the continuous right to representa- 
tion in Congress ; and while these States were 
represented in the confederacy and were rais- 
ing money and men as States to destroy the 
Government, they could have kept their rep- 
resentatives here to aid their allies upon this 
floor in preventing the raising of men and 
money to save it. 

THE MESSAGE VS. THE PRESIDENT. 

On these points I quote the President 
against thft author of tliia mesaagc. While 
the message charges Congress with destroy- 
ing the form as well as the substance of re- 
publican government in ten States, the Pres- 
ident on the other hand declares it was done 
by some one else, and not by Congress. In 
the iiroclamations which he issued to the ten 
rebel States "in obedience to the high and 
solemn duties imposed on him by the Con- 
stitution of the United States" — I quote from 
the one addressed to North Carolina — he 
said : 

"Whereas tho rebellion, which has been waged in the 
most violent and revolting form, has in its revolution- 
ary progress deprived the people of the State of North 
Carolina of all civil government, therefore I, Andrew 
Johnson," kc. 

Nothing here about Congress. It is the 
"rebellion" which has destroyed the civil 
governments in ten States, and made it nec- 
essary for some power to come to their aid 
for reorganization. No one has pretended 
that they were ever territorially out of the 
Union, or that the people ceased to owe al- 
legiance to the United States, or to be liable 
to punishment for crime committed against 
its sovereignty. I said Congress, by the ex- 
ercise of its legitimate powers, had regulat- 
ed the right of sufirage in the rebel States be- 
cause they occupied the position of States 
covered by people without any civil govern- 
ment, and the Constitution had made it the 
duty of Congress to guaranty to each State 
so situated a republican form of government. 

NO ORGANIZATIONS WHEN THE WAR DLOSED. 

When these States entered the confederacy 
they destroyed tho old State governments 
under which they lived within the Union. 
They made fealty to the Union treason to the 
confederacy. They declared all who would 
not swear fealty to the confederacy public 
enemies. They confiscated their property 
and drove them outside the rebel lines. As 
refugees they came to the North by thous- 
ands, stripped of their property and in desti- 
tution. They have now returned to the South, 
and with the loyal men they left behind, 
black and white, are now reconstructing thoeo 
' States iu tihe interests of freodow aad not oi 

Hist. Soo. 



slavery, of loyal menand notof rebels, which 
may accomut for the vindictiveness toward 
them. 

The people of the rebel Staes did not go 
into the rebellion as indi\-iduals in insurrec- 
tion against the government, volunteering 
their services and contributing their indi^-id- 
ual means, so that when the insurrection was 
put down the government would resume its 
rightful powers. They acted as organized 
States, destroying the old State constitutions 
by changing them to the forms required by 
the confederate government, and under them 
using the great State powers of taxation and 
conscription to raise men and money. And 
when, under the lead of Grant, we crashed 
out the rebel armies and the rebel State gov- 
ernments and the confederate government, 
the people of the ten rebel States were left 
vvithout any civil organizations. Now what 
was to be done in this condition of affairs? 

THE POWER OF CONGRESS. 

_ Turn to the Constitution and see what that 
directs. Article four, section four, says : 

" The United States shall guaranty to every State in 
this Union a republi'jau form of government." 

The question then arises, who are the Unit- 
ed States, for the performance of this duty 
and all other legislative duties ? Why, most 
plainly a majority of Congress, with the ap- 
proval of the President, or a majority amount- 
ing to two-thirds of both Houses of Congress 
without the sanction of the President. If 
there could be any doubt abov:t the matter it 
is settled by article one. section eight of the 
Constitution, which provides that — 

"CoDgrcfs shall have power to make all laws which 
shall be neceseary and proper for carrying into exeeu- 
tion the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested 
by this Constitution in the Goveramcut cf tho United 
States, or any department or officer thereof." 

There stands the constitutional warrant for 
the action of Congress in the matter of re- 
construction, clearly defined, and without the 
shadow of a doubt. Believing the people the 
source of all political power they have pro- 
vided that all the people who have not for- 
feited their political rights by adding perjury 
to the crime of treason shall have a voice in 
the creation of the government under which 
they are to live. In the liberality of their 
action they have excluded only the "leading 
enemies of free institutions ;" following the 
advice of the President when he said to Gov- 
ernor Morton and the Indiana delegation : 

" If a State ifl to be nursed until it gets strength, it 
mast be narned by its friends, not smothered by its en- 
emies." 

And again when as military governor of 
Tennessee — the only way and the only time 
he ever had any right to govern a rebel State 
— he said in a speech at Nashville : 

" I say that the traitor has cea.sed to be a citizen, and 
ia joining llie rebellion has become a public enemy. Ho 
forfeited his right to vote with loyal men when ho r«- 



nouiiccd his citizenship, and sought to destroy our Oo^ 
ernment, If there be but five thousand men in tb» 
State of Tennessee loj-al to freedom, loyal to justice, 
these men should control the work of organization and 
reformation entirely." 

But now how changed ! This man has now 
become the active aider of rebels ; is using 
the power and patronage of the Government 
to prevent restoration, and to crush out the 
men to whom he promised to be a Moses. It 
is an abuse of language and an insult to com- 
mon sense totalk about these States during 
the war as being within the Union and having 
the rights of States under the Constitution. 
Andre-sf Johnson did not believe it or act up- 
on it. Nobody believed it during the war, or 
at the close of the war. The rebels them- 
selves did not believe it, and an honest rebel 
would have scorned to claim such a right. 

A LARGE WHITE MAJORITY. 

A stranger would suppose from reading the 
message and hearing the speeches of those 
who champion the rebel cause on this floor 
that Congress had deliberately and wantonly 
stripped the great mass of the whites of the 
South of the privilege of the ballot to give it 
to the freedman, when probably not fifty 
thousand of all the rebels in the South are 
to-day deprived of the right of suffrage. The 
c-ensus tables of 1860 show the whites in a 
large majority in the States that went into 
the rebellion, while in only two States, South 
Carolina and Mississippi, are the blacks in a 
majority. To show this I have given the 
table : 



States. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Georgia 

Louisiana 

Mississippi 

North Carolina 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 



White 
population. 



526, 271 
324,14.3 
77,747 
891, 550 
337,456 
353, 901 
629, 942 
291, 300 
820, 722 
420, 891 
1,047,299 



5, 427, 122 3,736, 140 



Colored popu 
lation, slave 
and free, in- 
cluding III- 
dians. 



430, 930- 
111, 307 
62, 677 
456, 730 
S50, 646 
4.57, 404 
462, 680 
412, 408 
283, 079 
183, 324 
5S9, 049 



Here is a white population exceeing the 
black by 1,690,982, and after deducting every 
disfranched rebel will amount to a majority 
of near a million and three quarters. And 
yet, when the surly rebels cling to the '"lost 
cause" and will not vote, the message talkg 
about Congress subjecting States to negro 
domination. It is the fear of a Union ma- 
jority and not of negro supremacy that stirs 
the gall. 

STRANGE FACTS. 

There is another matter which naight or 
might not mislead a stranger. It has seemed 



strange to me that while I have been a mem- 
ber of this House no measure faTorable to 
Union men and freedmen has failed to get 
theuiiited opposition of this side of the House, 
■which claims to be Democratic, while every 
measure bearing against rebels is also cure 
to get their opposition. During the warthere 
seemed to be the same fatality, which made 
them oppose all measures which sent dismay 
to the ranks of the rebel army, and even the 
generals seemed to be possessed with it to 
the extent of catching those who had escaped 
from work on rebel fortifications and send- 
ing them back, so the rebels would not get 
short of help. They all seemed just as de- 
termined during the v,-ar to keep the negroes 
inslavery as a commissary departmentto furn- 
ish feed for the rebel army and cotton to send 
abroad for clothing and ammunition as they 
do now to keep them in ignorance, destitu- 
tion, and servitude to rebels, without the I 
rights of citizens or a ballot to protect tbem. 
It I am to make any mistake in this matter 
I want to make it in favor of oar allies in the 
fight and not against them. 

This message is full of the spirit of the re- 
bellion, wicked in its assumptions, and reck- 
less in its statements. With unblushing af- 
frontery it charges on Congress acts of usur- 
pation of which the Presidentaloneisguilty. 
In its own language he is guilty of " habitual 
violation of proscribed rules- "has set at 
naught the standard of civil duty ; " swung 
from the moorings of conscience, and yields 
up to every impulse of passion and interest." 
He plies the arts of the demagogue with all 
the skill of an old practitioner; but neither 
the sophisms or effrontery of the message 
can save its indorser, if not its author, from 
condemnation in its own language as guilty 
of ' ' usurpation, the most dangerous of politi- 
cal crimes." 

NEGRO INFERIORITY. 

Nearly a column of the message is devoted 
to proving that because the negro has been 
doomed by slavery to ignorance he must not 
be allowed the rights which belong to a state 
of freedom. It ill becomes the man who was 
himself born to ignorance and poverty to 
kick down the ladder by which he advanced, 
and add ingratitude to the crime of usurpa- 
tion. By law condemned to ignorance while 
in a state of slavery, the negroes of the South 
have shown as much aptitude for learning in 
a «tate of freedom and have made more ad- 
vancement in education than the poor whites 
from whom the President sprung. If they 
are so weak in purpose and inferior in ability 
surely thirty millions of the strong race need 
not fear four milliang of the weak. If they 
have capacity, why not give thera the oppor- 
tunity to develop it? It may be v.-rong to 
taunt men with a want of that which God de- 
nied them, but I cannot forget to remember 



^7ith what mortification I read of the inter- 
view between the President and the unce 
Maryland slave, Douglass, when the marlced 
superiority of the escaped slave should have 
made the President, if no one else, forever 
silent on the subject of negro inferiority. 

SUFFRAGE 

In this message and in a multitude of ways 
the President has made assertions, insinua- 
tions, and statements intended to excite the 
prejudices and passions of the foreign-born 
voters agaiust the native-born voters of the 
South. If I could speak with a voice to 
reach the voters of this land I would say to 
them, beware of being governed by preju- 
dice. Remember that a blow struck at the 
humblest voter is a blow aimed at you all. 
When you require a property qualification of 
a black man it is a precedent to require it of 
a white one, and a blo^ aimed at every poor 
man and his descendants. When you make 
the test of education for the negro it is a 
precedent to shut out all not born under 
favoring circumstances to get knowledge. 
If you demand that he shall read and write it 
may be demanded that you shall do it under- 
standingly before you may have a voice in 
the Government under v.hich you are to live 
and which, it may be, owes its very cxistenco 
to your services. Especially to the foreign- 
born voter would I appeal. Driven many of 
you by govermental persecutions from the 
homes of your ancestors, you come here to 
enjoy rights and privileges there denied you. 
Copy not here the oppression and persecu- 
tions toward the freedmen which drove you 
from your native land. It may be the means 
of driving them from their sunny homes in 
the South to divide with you the scanty loaf 
which labor now receives at the North. Be- 
ware how you persecute them lest you driva 
them from their homes and have to compete 
for labor with men who know by sad e.^peri- 
ence how to live upon a peck of corn and two 
pounds of bacon a week, with a scanty cov- 
ering of rags. Rather aid them with your 
votes and keep them where they now are. 
Elevate labor everywhere. Make it both re- 
spectable and profitable, that you and your 
children in this the land of your adoption 
may enjoy its fruits. 

CONFISCATION. 

One or two points more and I have done. 
The President charges that — 

" Already tbe negroes are influenced by promises of 
confiscation and plunder." 

Vv^ho has promised them confiscation ? On 
the 0th of June, 185-1, Andrew Johnson, in 
his official capacity as military governor oi 
Tennessee, stood up before the people q^ 
that State, black and white, and declared — 
" Theee leadsrg ri';st feel th3 power of this OoTern- 
ment. Tre'.ison miut lie raada odiouai, and traitors must 
be jvunisbc'd and impoverished. Tm great plantations 
must be seized and diTlded into small farms. 



And now, when he undertakes to hold 
Longrcss responsible Ibr the doctrines which 
he ta-dght to the negroes of Tennessee, 1 say 
to him as he said on that occasion to the sur- 
rounding rebels : 

" Thou canst not eay, I did it ; never shake 
Xhy gory locks at me." 

And I suggest to the gentleman from New 
YorK [Mr. ChaxlerI and the gentleman 
from \7isconsm, [Mr. Eldridoe,] thatinstead 
ot wasting all this thunder at the old com- 
Tr w^i!-"" Pennsylvania they direct a part 
of the White House, where they are supposed 
to tiave some influence. 

It may turn out Johnson was right The 
rebel element in the South is now perse- 
cuting the Union men, and pursuing a course 
toward the colored men whom they have 
peeled for generations that would make such 
a course justifiable. The rebel owners of the 
land had justly forfeited it by their treason. It 
had been brought under cultivation by the 
unpaid labor of the slaves who were our al- 
ias in the fearful struggle. At the close of 
the war and since they have been peaceable 
and thrifty citizens eager to obtain knowl- 
edge. Without homes and without lands oi 
tiieir own they have produced from the right- 
fully forfeited lands of rebels not only°the 
means whereby they live but the means 
whereby these unrepentant rebels are able to I 
live and oppress them. For exercising the I 
rights of suflrage as independent freemen ' 
they have been persecuted and driven from ' 
their humble homes, creating suffering that I 
would soften the hearts of stone. The evic- I 
tionof the Irish peasants from the cots of' 
their fathers by the English landlords was 
humanity itself compared with the treatment 
now meted out to colored men in some lo- 
calities. If it is not stopped we may be com- 
pelled to adopt the doctrine of the President 
and take the justly forfeited great plantations 
of persistent and unrepentant rebels for sol- 
diers' bounties. It would be wholesome 
punishment richly deserved. But why follow 
this matter further ? The President is con- 
stantly charging upon Congress the acts of 
which he is himself guilty, and provokes the 
remarks he so aptly applied to another : 

" Whenever you hear a m^n praiting about the Con- 
Ktitnnon, spot him ; he is a traitor." 

nECKLESS ST.ATEMEXTS. 

To show how utterly reckless this message 
IS in statement let me contrast two para- 
graphs. He says of reconstruction : 

"It haa cost uncounted millions already, and if per- 
sisted in it will require a strong standing army and 
probably more than two hundred million dollars per 
annum to maintain the supremacy of negro goverments 
after Ihcyare established." 

With every probability that these States 
will be reconstructed upon the congressional 
plan by the 1st of July ne2;t he deliberately 
makes up liis estimates of the wliolo expen- 



se of the War Department for every and all 
purposes for the year following that date, as 
follows : 

^'' J^,V°'*.' estimafes for military appropriations are 
$77,1^4., 07, m-ludjiig a deficiency in tho last year's an- 
propnatioiis of 13,000,000." j-^iu o ap 

Was ever a reckless statement more clearly 
shown up tnan one statement from this 
message shows up the falsity of the other? 
I have not been able to find the items of ex- 
pense of reconstruction in the rebel States. 
Ihel'reedmen's Bureau for eleven months 
expended $3,597,397. In the first military 
district about$250,000 were expended by mili- 
tary, registration., &c. In the third, $162,326 
were expended for registration and matters 
connected therewith. In the other districts 
I do not find the amounts. But take the lar- 
gest sum for eaeh district and double it, and • 
add the whole cost of reconstruction, with 
the Freedmen's Bureau included, and it is 
less than eight million dollars for the year, 
making the whole cost of reconstruction by 
Congress less than the amount turned over 
to rebels by the President, almost without 
consideration and without law. 



freedmen's bureau. 
The expense to the nation of the Freed- 
men's Bureau has always been a fruitful 
theme with the President, with rebel sympa- 
[ thizers, and all the friends of slavery. The 
I report of General Grant makes its whole cost 
for eleven months ending the l.st of Septem- 
ber last $3,597,397 Go. For the full year at 
that rate it would amount to $3,924,423 80. 
The compensating advantages of the bureau, 
apart from its aid[ to education and furnish- 
ing the destitute of all colors, inconsequeace 
of the small crops of last year in the South, 
was that it answered the purposes of capital, 
ihe clo?e of the war found the South with its 
capital invested in the confederacy destroyed, 
and desolation in the track of the armies. 
The planters had land, but no money to pay 
for labor. The negroes had labor, but no 
money to buy land. The planter had no faith 
that the freedmen would give him constant 
labor. The freedman had no faith in getting 
his pay if he trusted the planter. The course 
of the rebels toward immigrants kept out 
capital, and it seemed as though that whole 
section was doomed to lay waste. In this 
state of affairs the Freedmen's Bureau was 
established. It said to the freedmen, go to 
work on shares or trust, and we will see that 
you get your pay. It said to the planter, 
employ the freedmen and they shall not 
leave you when you most need their labor to 
save. the crop. What was the result? The 
world was astonished .it the amount of our 
cotton crop. We drove China and Japan cot- 
ton from the English market. Egypt next 
back to raising grain, and Brazil to raising 
coffee. The Royal Bank of Liverpool, which 



was holding up the India eotton merchants, 
failed for $10,000,000, and cotton cloths went 
from fity to fifteen cents a yard. We raised at 
least seven hundred and fifty thousand bales 
of cotton more in consequence of the confi- 
dence established between the planters and 
the freedmen, worth more then than a hun- 
dred million dollars, and the tax upon which, 
at three cents a pound, amounted to more to 
the Government than the whole cost of the 
bureau, saying nothing of the benefits to the 
people, to manufactures, and to trade both 
foreign and domestic. 

CONCLUSION. 

One item more and I am done. This us- 
urper, who has been dictating to States how 
they shall organize and whom they shall al- 
low to vote ; who has seized the revenues of 
the State and passed it over to the rebels ; 
whose hands are red with the blood of patri- 
ots shed at New Orleans by rebels with whom 
he was in correspondence and sympathy, now 
suggests what other dreadful things the Ex- 
ecutive may be compelled to do if Congress 
should pass some act against his sovereign 
pleasure, coupled with iife and buts, which in- 
sinuate what he dares not utter. 

I have heard before of his feelers thrown 
out to get the pulse of the people ; how in 
1866, when swinging round the circle, filled 
with the spirit of conservatism, he declared 
" Congress was a revolutionary body hang- 
ing on the verge of the government, and as- 
suming to be a Congress of theUnited States;" 
how his New Hampshire adviser and coun- 
selor (Burke) declared, in the spirit of his 
master, "they should expiate their mon- 
strous crimes upon the scaffold." 

Sir, I come from a State the bones of 
whose soldiers are buried beneath most of 
the battle-fields where freedom was won and 
nationality secured — a State whose flag has 
never yet been disgraced by cowardice — and 
I say to the President and his tools that her 
representatives are not to be intimidated by 
his implied threats. I tell him further, if the 
day shall ever come when he attempts what 
he insinuates, but dares not utter, that if the 
chief of rebels goes unhung, the chief of us- 
urpers will not. 

I know not what further trials God in His 
Infinite Prvoidence may have in store for this 
nation, but whatever they maybe I have an 
abiding confidence that He will give us 
strength and courage to meet them as shall 
become freemen and the representatives of 
freemen. 

A NEW LOAN. 

On Monday, Dec. 2, 1867, Mr. Ela intro- 
duced the following resolution, which was 
read, considered and agreed to : 

Resulved, That tho Committee on "Ways and Means 
be instructed to inquira into tlw exp«diene7 cf a new 



loan, payable after ten yeari, and redeaiaable after thir- 
ty year* iu coin, by the issue on bonds bearing five p«r 
cent, interest, in coin, payable semi-annually, and taxa- 
ble at tho rate of one per cent,, to be deducted from th« 
interest whenjiaid, the tax to be distributed to the seT- 
cral States in proportion to their Representatives In 
Congress, in lieu of local taxation; and also of providing 
for a notice to holders of Government obligations now 
or hereafter to become due, that they may receive said 
bonds in exchange or payment, according to the tenor 
of their obligations, witliout interest after notice ; said 
notice to be given from time to time whenever the con- 
dition of tho Treasury will allow the redemption with- 
out increasiug tho floating obligations of the govern- 
ment beyond the amount now in circulation, and report 
by bill or otherwise. 

There is no mistaking the fact that the 
great and difficult question for the consider- 
ation of Congress is Finance. How to raise 
the money necessary to meet the expenses 
of the government and the interest on the 
public debt, with the least burden to business 
and labor, is no easy task ; and how to lay 
taxation equally and justly is very difficuft, 
as all who have ever tried it know. The re- 
duction of expenses already inaugurated by 
Congress, and for which measures are in 
the course of preparation will reduce the ex- 
penses of the government about twenty-five 
per cent, below last year, which was a great 
rcQuction from the year preceding. The debt 
bearing interest above the cadh on hand is 
about $2,000,000,000, which, at six per cent, 
interest, would amount to $120,000,000.— 
This ought to be reduced, and must be, and 
that is what is sought to be accomplished by 
the resolution above. 

It is confidently believed that capital in- 
vested in business for the last year has not 
yielded an average return of five per cent. : 
and there is no good reason to believe it coula 
yield a greater return in business than it now 
does while we are contracting to specie pay- 
ment. The chances are that it will be less. 
Loans permanent and safe, and which re- 
quire no attention, ought always to be made at 
least one per cent, below the average returns 
of business. It is a matter which will gen- 
erally regulate itself, and when the rates of 
interest are kept above the average returns 
of business, convulsions and jjanic are sure 
to follow, and strew their wrecks on every 
hand. The rates of interest must be reduc- 
ed to the nation, the state, the towns, and 
the individual, and the burdens resting on 
business and labor reduced to the utmost 
possible extent. Communities can pay in- 
terest in proportion to the profits and amount 
of their capital. When the capital is small 
and the profits large, a high rate may be paid 
and not be oppressive. But not so in com- 
munities where capital is abundant aoa prof- 
its small. Before the war six per cent, was 
the common rate at which capital was loan- 
ed. We have, dtiring the war and since, ad- 
ded to the capital which drew interest, an 
equal amount of debt which draws interest, 
and v.-hich stands as capital to tho holders, 



and is used and treated as such. This has 
so increased the amount upon which interest 
is paid, that the rates must be reduced or 
business and labor must sink under its de- 
mands, and suffering and want follow with 
their attendant evils. When the government. 
which is the great borrower, shall reduce the 
rates of interest paid, states, municipalities 
and individuals will find relief, and taxation 
for state and local purposes will be lessen- 
ed. If this is not done, stagnation and stop- 
page of business will leave capital idle and 
the eame result will be reached ultimately 
through business reverses and financial dis- 
aster. There is no downy roiiJ *o specie 
payment. It is onl)'- to be re ■ ';;■ I-i'irrMjgh 
a contraction of currency and a /" 

values, and lessening the cos. s 
of all articles, so that our )uurket. 
cheap to buy in, instead of hich mai 
sell in. So long as our markets :■'•': *' 
in which to sell the surplus of other i. 
just so long will gold leave the country to ^^ , 
for imports. 

When the nation was in the perils of war 
and must have money to pay and equip sol- 
diers, or go down in disgrace, there was a 
f;reat party in the country constantly declar- 
ng the rebels could never be subdued, and 
that whoever lent the Government their 
money would never get their pay. The re- 
sult was, the Government was compelled to 
offer large inducements to lenders to over- 
come this democratic carping at its credit. 
At first, the money came with great difficulty, 
and soldiers had to go for months without 
their pay. Then, as confidence increased, 
and democratic clamorers were silenced, it 
came more freely. One great inducement 
oflfered was exemption from taxation. The 
«normous debt and its exemption from taxa- 
tion were largely caused by the encourage- 
ment the rebels received from the Demo- 
cratic party by discouraging enlistments and 
loans. It was a critical position in which 
the Administration then stood, fighting rebels 
on one side, and their practical allies on the 
other; and one of its greatest trials was to 
get the money. They took the precaution to 
borrow on short time and reserved the right 
to pay after five years, if they could get 
money on better terms, which is the object 
of the proposed new loan. 

Equal taxation is what all want, and lo- 
cal taxation would be most desirable, if it 
could be made to reach all bondholders. But 
the foreign bondholder could not be reached, 
and the tendency would be to send all our 
bonds abroad. Besides, one half the local 



bondholdeis would manage to avoid taxation 
on bonds as they always did on interest 
money. It is for the interest of every tax- 
payer to have the bonds kept at home, at low 
rates, bo the interest will go back into the 
communities from which it was drawn. It 
may, perhaps, be said, that the rates of taxa,- 
tion were more than one per cent. That is 
true, now ; but as the local debts are paid, 
that rate is declining. Then, again, other 
property is not rated at more than two thirds 
its cash value for taxation. And, besides, 
the proposed rates of interest are at present 
low. By having the Government lay and 
collect the tax, it is equal everywhere, and 
no bond escapes ; and there is no embarrass- 
ment from hostile local taxation. When the 
Sintes receive it, it may be distributed aa the 
people direct. 
The tables prepared by the Secretary of 
asary based upon the ratio of popu- 
hows what each state would receive, 
. ... ^anks were taxed at the rate of ona 
per cent, as follows : 

Maine 

Massachusetts... 748,378 4 i 

New Hamp 194,411 17 

Vermont 186,026 09: 

Connecticut 282,418 01 ( 

Rhode Island... 10-,174]6 1 

New York 2,381,825 89 i 

New Jersey 412,466 92 1 

Pennsylvania.... 1,783,647 12 " 

Ohio 1,449,559 58^ 

Indiana 838,727 81 ! 

Michigan 472,909 32;] 

Illinois 1,300,892 56 Kansaa 156,662 80 

Wisconsin 621,554 49lNebraska 33,716 86 

Iowa 493,159 19 California 283,75314 

Minnesota 177,840 9l|Nevada 24,048 73 

Missouri 773,8;vl 79 Oregon 46,000 76 

Kentucky 709,308 45 • 

Tennessee 681,147 55 20,000,000 00 

Arkansas 267,259 98 = 

The advantages to be derived from this 
plan are so obvious as not to require discus- 
sion. It would secure a distribution of the 
bonds throughout the states and counties and 
cities. It would create an interest in the 
bonds in states the people of which are just- 
ly responsible for the debt, but whose early 
and complete restoration to the Union is so 
desirable and important, and would give to 
them needed aid in their efiorts to build up 
again their own prostrate credit. It would 
put an end to all discussions and doubts in 
regard to the kind of currency in which the 
bonds are to be paid, to all complaints of ex- 
clusive privileges, and place the public credit 
on a basis worthy a nation whose resources 
are second to those of no other nation, and 
of whose future resources the present are but 
an indication. 



$385,609 TCjr.ouisiana $434,540 7T 

Texas 529,772 40 

.\labama. 580,512 53 

I Mississippi 471,792 28 

Georgia 648,915 98 

Florida 90.290 60 

I S. Carolina 431,905 13 

N.Carolina.... 626,634 23 

: Virginia 730,662 50 

I West Virginia. 249,088 11 

Maryland 421,680 63 

ijDelawaro 68,873 42 



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